Wednesday, April 09, 2003

Today is my last day in Mamallapuram (I like to believe the name means "village of the mamals", but I doubt it), and I began the settling my bill with the guesthouse manager. I was astonished to find I'd been here for 18 days, when I seriously believed it had been at most 11 or 12. I decided it was possible that I could have been misled into writing "24/3/03" in the signing-in book, next to my name. The only way I could convince myself that I had in fact been here for nearly three weeks (nearly three weeks!) was by remembering all the meals I'd eaten, and adding them up (one fish masala, one tandori fish, one calamari curry, one bindi masala). I still only managed to make 15 days, so I suppose the other three meals must have been singularly unremarkable. Or, more likely, just more fish.

Instead of pissing about in the boiling south, I'm heading on the express train to Bombay tomorrow (it only takes 25 hours). My sitar has rapidly become a very large millstone around my neck; although not literally so, as the case doesn't have a shoulder strap. But considering the fairly limited space given on sleeper trains, I honestly do not know how I'm going to get it from here to Bombay without giving up my bunk for it and sleeping on the floor. It is a wonderful instrument, though, now that I've managed to get past the incorrect and incorroborated tutorial in the book I bought ("Learn to Play on SITAR"). It's also very Indian - not so much the sound, but the fact that to do anything with it takes forever.